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Pump it to play chords, spinning pretty rainbow colors, round and round, singing a sad song to you.
This is the Choral Top which is both sonically and visually stunning. It must be pumped manually to engage the small music box planted at the base. With adequate pumping it plays a stack of lovely and slightly dissonant chords. It also makes other interesting sounds from the spinning parts. I used this top in a collaborative performance with the choreographer Leslie Seiters. We used recordings of it spread over 8 speakers and the dance troop also used 16 of these tops at once for performance props. The project was called, An Incidental Fear of Numbers and we performed six times in both San Diego and San Francisco. The sound clip here is from this performance, only tops and a bit of digital processing.
This toy is available at many online toy stores.
A slow moan echoed through the room. Like a ghost from the ether. Crying for its past life and groaning at its future. It hummed as it walked among the fog between the earth and the netherworld. A sigh escaped its lips as it watched the beings living on the earth. Wishing it could join in on the fun yet again. As it travelled back to the ether, it pulled out a small violin. It placed the bow on the strings and played an eerie song. His master, Death, gladly accepted the ghostly creature in its tendrils of darkness once again. It continued to play as it entered the netherworld. It was a song that penetrated the heart with cold gloom. It came with a shock of beauty and solemness. But within the solemness, was a shockingly dark allure. This is the sound that pulls at the heart when Death seduces you with the kiss of death. It is a kiss that is never forgotten time and time again. This sound is the sound of death in a colorful spin.
It sounds like a train going by a house making metal pipes shake. Knocking things off there shelves and waking the residents of the house. Then passes temporarily leaving the house in peace.
Then it starts sounding like a ghostly wail in a rickety old haunted house. Then the symphony of hamrmonicas and trumpets comes in. Joining the ghostly wail in it’s sad lonely song and makes the room shake even more like it might cave in. Slowly scaring away everyone who comes near making the ghost wail more in it’s loneliness.
Also it kind of sounds like a hollow metal pole being slammed against a hard metal wall making it vibrate violently. Shaking wildly back in worth making a weird swooping sound.
It reminds me of the sound of the sea of nothing in the yellow submarine movie. Hollow and ominous like there is nothing there, but makes a sound anyway just to be heard. It also reminds me of The Beatles song “Northern Song” the way you can complain about what it sounds like but it will still sound the same and there’s no changing that. Also sometimes there’s nothing to complain about.
Lastly it sounds like a lonely harmonica player playing his lonely song while locked in jail. Just like he’s waiting for someone to join his sad song so maybe he might not be so lonely. Then he finds his song can’t reach anyone so he stops playing.
It first started like a really soft sound that you could barely hear. It made you feel like you were on another place alone without anything or anyone around you. Then it was a little louder but still soft and calm. It sounded like the songs movies play when something sad happens or when someone dies and everyone is crying. In the beginning it also sounds like when someone is in a really dark room alone and a ghost is behind them and that person is turning around to see what is behind them. It was a sound that was calm and peaceful but at the same time sad and a little scary. It sounded like a train going through a lonely forest on a cold, dark, and stormy day. Going without direction just going forward to see what it finds. In some parts it also sounds like a train going through a city when the sun is going down on the afternoon. This sound makes you think about sad things but it also makes you a little sleepy. This sounds fills you with hope. This sound made me think of someone alone in their house playing an instrument while it was raining outside. That person was playing how he felt and what he felt through that sound. That sound made that person express all of his sadness and loneliness. At last, it also sounds like a carousel but a little softer.